Team Tampa Bay's Take with Joey Johnston: What's Ahead for Team Tampa Bay
Men's Frozen For Launches Action-Packed Series of Major Events
By Joey Johnston
As Saturday night’s NCAA Frozen Four championship game prepared for overtime at Amalie Arena, Tampa Bay Sports Commission executive director Rob Higgins found himself in the arena’s southwest corner, just outside the ice, directly below a section filled with fans from Quinnipiac University.
“I had just done a social media post about how great a game we had on our hands and how I never wanted it to end,’’ Higgins said. “Then — boom! — Quinnipiac scores. And I was right in the middle of their fan section. It was absolute pandemonium — an awesome experience.
“Just happened to be in that spot. I guess it was pretty good timing.’’
Pretty good timing, indeed.
Quinnipiac’s 3-2 overtime upset victory against the No. 1-seeded Minnesota Golden Gophers was one for the ages and 19,444 fans (second all-time arena crowd for a Frozen Four game) were there as witnesses.
After a week of rave reviews, the TBSC will pursue its fourth Frozen Four. In fact, as fans and officials exited Amalie Arena following Quinnipiac’s dramatic victory, they were greeted by a billboard message:
LET’S MAKE IT A FROZEN FOUR(TH) … THANK YOU, NCAA!
The Frozen Four is set for 2024 (St. Paul, Minnesota), 2025 (St. Louis) and 2026 (Las Vegas). Within a few months, bids will be solicited for Frozen Four events from 2027-31, and final announcements are expected in 2024.
“We’d like the Frozen Four back in Tampa Bay as quickly and as frequently as possible,’’ Higgins said.
But until college hockey’s championship returns to Amalie, Tampa Bay area fans have a conga line of major events to enjoy:
April 28-29, 2023: The Savannah Bananas, the baseball/entertainment troupe that has taken the sports world by storm with its innovative game rules and fan-friendly approach to marketing, will visit Steinbrenner Field as part of its 34-city World Tour. As is the team’s custom, both games became hard sellouts almost as instantly as tickets were put on sale. The Bananas will face their comedic foil, the Party Animals, in the April 28 game, then a team of Major League Baseball Players Association all-stars on April 29. The Banana Ball visit to Tampa Bay already is one of the highlight events on the sporting calendar.
Dec. 13-16, 2023 — The NCAA Volleyball Championship Final Four arrives at Amalie Arena. The women’s college volleyball profile has been raised significantly — and the downtown footprint has evolved — since the last time this event was held in Tampa. And who can forget that? In the 2009 championship match, Penn State rallied from two sets down to defeat Texas, giving the Nittany Lions their 102nd consecutive victory and a 38-0 record. With volleyball participation and success at an all-time high in Tampa Bay and Central Florida as a whole, the NCAA Championships could act as a catalyst for even more growth.
The Road to Tampa Bay will actually begin with a premiere event — the Road 2 Tampa Bay Volleyball Invitational on Aug. 25-26 at Amalie Arena and USF’s Yuengling Center. The field includes the Florida Gators, Penn State Nittany Lions, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and USF Bulls.
April 4-6, 2025 — The NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four is set for Amalie Arena. It’s the fourth time Tampa Bay has hosted this event and the past champions have been legendary (Pat Summitt’s Tennessee Lady Vols in 2008, Geno Auriemma’s UConn Huskies in 2015, Kim Mulkey’s Baylor Bears in 2019).
Who will it be in 2025? Who knows? But one thing is certain: NCAA women’s basketball is a white-hot sports property, capped by the recent LSU-Iowa title game. It attracted an average of 9.9 million viewers on ABC-TV’s Sunday afternoon telecast, a figure that obliterated the old record (5.68 million in 2002) while outperforming the football audience for last season's Cotton, Orange and Sugar Bowls.
Once Cleveland hosts the 2024 Women’s Final Four, Tampa Bay is on the clock for more big-time women’s hoops.
March 20-22, 2026 — The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament early round games return to Amalie Arena, perhaps taking some sting out of 2020 (when Tampa Bay was set to host, but the entire NCAA Tournament was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic).
Tampa Bay enjoyed spectacular success with its last two early-round fields. In 2011, it was the greatest conglomeration of combined NCAA Tournament victories and past champions ever (Kentucky, UCLA, Florida and Michigan State were in the field). In 2008, Tampa Bay became “Upset City’’ as the underdogs took all four opening-round games, highlighted by Ty Rogers’ buzzer-beating overtime 3-pointer that lifted No. 12-seed Western Kentucky over Drake.
That’s a full plate.
Following an appetizing Frozen Four, that seems appropriate.
“It’s getting harder and harder to call Tampa a non-traditional hockey market, just given the interest and passion about the Lightning and the success of the Frozen Four here,’’ said NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Selection Committee Chairman Jeff Schulman, athletic director at Vermont. “There’s no question for those of us who love this sport and want to see it grow, spreading the interest around the country is a great thing. Having a successful event in Tampa means a lot.
“If I had a dollar for everybody during the week who said they want Tampa to be a regular part of the circuit, well, I think with three Frozen Fours in the past 11 years, it sort of has already become that. Having the Frozen Four in communities like Tampa Bay that are so passionate about it, it’s good for the game in multiple ways.’’
All of the Frozen Four coaches advocated for the event’s return to Tampa Bay, but none were more pointed than Minnesota coach Bob Motzko, who flatly said the event should be at Amalie Arena “at least every third year.’’
With Minneapolis-St. Paul enduring a winter snowfall of nearly 90 inches — and a blizzard hitting the area just before the Golden Gophers left for Tampa — the warm weather and adjusted wardrobe of shorts and flip-flops were welcome changes.
“The sun is not gonna to bother any of us,’’ Motzko said with a smile.
“It was a tough winter,’’ Minnesota-Duluth coach Scott Sandelin said. “So all of us who live in Minnesota, we were happy to get down here. I was here in 2012 (for Tampa Bay’s first Frozen Four) and just to see how this community has grown and how it continues to rally around this event, it’s just awesome.’’